Method and Apparatus for Managing Membership of Dynamic Virtual Groups

ABSTRACT

A method and system is provided that may be used to dynamically modify membership of a collaboration group participating in a collaboration session using dynamic situational information associated with collaboration session and/or collaboration group member candidates. The dynamic situational information may include collaboration session information, environmental information and context information. A change in collaboration session purpose may trigger a modification of group membership in accordance with a concomitant change in group membership criteria. A change of situational information associated with any group member candidate may trigger the modification of group membership, to add or delete the candidate from the group. The method and apparatus of the present invention may advantageously be embodied in a service that is used by existing communication and collaboration systems to enhance workflow efficiency by exploiting system knowledge to improve the use of resources, reduce the incidence of errors and eliminate redundancy.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to communications and more particularlyto a method and apparatus for managing membership of dynamic virtualgroups.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

It is often desirable to identify a group of individuals or otherresources for communication and/or collaboration sessioncharacteristics, where collaboration involves the direction of theefforts and capabilities of a group towards a common goal. Communicationbetween collaborating group members is essential to the promptachievement of the goal as it can ensure individual resources areappropriately directed and minimize duplication of efforts.

U.S. patent Ser. No. 11/303,989, entitled “Method and System forEnhancing Collaboration, filed Dec. 19, 2005 by Raymond Wallace, et al.and incorporated herein by reference describes a system for identifyingcollaborators that are needed to respond to a triggering event andinviting the collaborators to participate in a collaboration associatedwith the triggering event. The collaborators are identified usingexisting data regarding available resources. Collaborators are given theoption of participating in the effort, and appropriate communicationlinks are established between members of the collaboration group.

Although the above method is useful for identifying a group forcollaboration session characteristics, the membership of thecollaborating group is defined based on static data structures anddecisions that are made at the point in time that the collaboration isestablished. However, as the collaborative group perseveres toward thegoal, events may occur that make it desirable to vary resourceparticipation; e.g. to create a new related or disjoint group. It wouldbe desirable to identify a method and system for dynamically controllinggroup membership for collaborative and other communication purposes.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A method for dynamically controlling group membership in a collaborativesession uses dynamic situational information to determine whethersession membership should be modified. The situational informationincludes environmental information and contextual information related toa candidate for the collaborative session, where the contextualinformation includes but is not limited to candidate location, candidaterole and candidate security status. The situational information givingrise to a change in group membership may also include a change in apurpose of the collaborative session. Session membership is selectivelymodified in response to changes in situational information. With such anarrangement, session membership can be dynamically adapted toaccommodate fluctuations in resource availability and need.

According to one aspect of the invention, a method for managingmembership in a collaborative session includes the steps of monitoringsituational information associated with a group candidate to detect asituational trigger, the group candidate being associated with acollaborative session; and modifying a membership of the session inresponse to the situational trigger.

According to a further aspect of the invention, an apparatus forcontrolling group candidate membership in a collaborative sessionincludes means for monitoring environmental information associated withthe collaborative session, means for monitoring a purpose of thecollaborative session and means for monitoring contextual information ofgroup candidates associated with the collaborative session. Eventdetection logic is provided for detecting changes to at least one of theenvironmental, purpose and contextual information; and membershipmodification logic is provided for selectively modifying membership ofgroup candidates associated with the collaborative session in responseto the event detection logic.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a diagram that illustrates several components of a dynamicgroup membership management service of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating exemplary steps that may beperformed to manage membership of dynamic groups according to principlesof the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a more detailed diagram illustrating exemplary components thatmay be included in one embodiment of the dynamic group membershipmanagement service of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a diagram provided to illustrate an exemplary interface thatmay be employed by the group membership management service of thepresent invention to dynamically form group sub-sets, merge groups andperform other dynamic group membership modifications;

FIG. 5 is a state diagram provided to illustrate how changes in dynamicsituational information for a group candidate may results inmodification of group membership; and

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram that illustrates several exemplary steps thatmay be performed by group membership selection logic of the presentinvention to modify group membership among a plurality of simultaneouslyoperating collaborative sessions in accordance with dynamic situationalinformation to enable optimal performance of each collaborative session.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention is directed at a method and apparatus that may beused to dynamically modify membership of a group participating in acollaboration session using dynamic situational information associatedwith at least one of the collaborative session and group membercandidates, where candidates (human, equipment or any other entity) maybe individuals or other groups of candidates. The dynamic situationalinformation associated with the collaboration session includes changesin characteristics of the collaboration session, where the change incharacteristic may include a change in purpose, scope, workflow,duration, membership criteria or other characteristic which may make itdesirable to alter group membership in the collaboration session. Thedynamic information associated with the group member candidates includesbut is not limited to environmental information and context information.A change of situational information associated with any group membercandidate may trigger the modification of group membership for acollaboration session, wherein the modification of membership includesthe creation or deletion of group members participating in thecollaboration session, and the creation or deletion of an entire groupfor participating in the collaboration session, or the creation ordeletion of a new group for participating in a new collaborationsession. The method and apparatus of the present invention mayadvantageously be embodied in a service that is used by existingcommunication and collaboration systems to enhance workflow efficiencyby exploiting system knowledge to improve the use of resources, reducethe incidence of errors and eliminate redundancy.

According to one aspect of the invention, a group membership managementservice is provided which monitors situational information associatedwith group candidates and collaborative purpose to detect situationaltriggers that may require modification to candidate membership in agiven communication or collaboration session. In one embodiment, groupmembership is automatically updated in response to the situationaltriggers to ensure that the most appropriate candidates are included inthe group communication/collaboration session to reflect currentresource availability and need. Automating the process in this mannereliminates the need for time consuming manual management, reduces theincidence of errors and facilitates collaboration between groupparticipants to advance processes of a work flow.

In an alternate embodiment, the detection of situational triggers mayresult in notifications being sent to an administrator of thecommunication or collaboration session, to permit a session controllerto control the modification of group membership, and thereby synchronizethe membership modifications with the workflows of the session. In oneembodiment it is also envisioned that a decision making entity in thegroup membership management service may use heuristics, inferencealgorithms or other logic when determining whether to add or deletemembers from a group.

FIG. 1 illustrates several representative components that may beincluded in a group membership management service 10 of the presentinvention. For the purpose of the below discussion, a ‘collaborationsession’ shall mean a particular collaboration or communicationparticipated in by one or more group members. Each collaboration sessionmay include on or more workflows, with each workflow including one ormore tasks. The present invention allows group membership to bedynamically controlled at a task granularity, taking into considerationthe resource needs and availability within a collaboration session andacross multiple collaboration sessions.

Within each collaboration session there may be one or more sub-sessionsin which sub-sets of the group members participate on various tasksassociated with the collaboration session. Within any collaboration itis appreciated that group members may use different communicationmechanisms to participate in the collaboration session. For example, acollaborative session may be established between candidates, some whichutilize a voice conference and some of which receive textualcommunications using voice to speech translation. In addition, anindividual group member may use different communication mechanisms atvarious points within the collaboration depending upon user preferences,environmental and contextual information. Accordingly the presentinvention is not limited to any particular type or number ofcommunication mechanisms being used within the collaboration sessions.

A ‘candidate’ shall be an entity that is available to participate in acollaboration session. The candidate may be any type of resource,including a human, animal or mechanical resource. Exemplary methods bywhich a candidate is initially solicited to participate in a session aredisclosed in U.S. patent Ser. No. 11/303,989, entitled “Method andSystem for Enhancing Collaboration, entitled “Method and System forEnhancing Collaboration”, filed Dec. 19, 2005 by Raymond Wallace, et al,incorporated by reference above. After initial selection the presentinvention manages group membership to ensure that appropriate candidatesare added to or removed from a collaboration session, taking intoaccount dynamic situational information.

Central to the group membership management service 10 is a decisionmaking entity 16. The decision making entity 16 communicates withcommunication or collaboration services 18 which may include amulti-media call server, group ware engine or any server or engine whichpermits numbers of candidates to communicate, collaborate or otherwisebe cooperative. The decision making entity 16 receives environmentalinput from environmental monitoring devices 12, contextual and staticdata from devices 14, and notifications of changes to purposecollaboration session characteristics from the collaboration services18. In one embodiment notifications of changes to collaboration sessioncharacteristics may be manually or automatically provided by thecollaboration services 18, as indicated in FIG. 1. In an alternateembodiment, the event detection and decision logic may utilizeheuristics or inference algorithms to determine whether group membershipcriteria should be modified. For example, such algorithms may useinformation regarding an operation performed by the collaborationsession which indicates an approaching end to the usefulness of certaingroup members (for example, the downgrade of severity of an emergencymay cause the members of the collaborative group to be changed). Thepresent invention is not limited to any particular manner of determiningthat group membership criteria should be changed.

The environmental monitoring devices 12 may include, for example,existing environmental monitoring devices such as those used infirst-response and healthcare environments, and may include fire alarms,smoke detection devices and other monitoring devices which provideinformation regarding a physical environment.

As mentioned above, the decision making entity 16 also receivescontextual and static data from repositories and monitoring devices 14.The contextual and static data is generally but not exclusively relatedto one or more group candidates. For example, the contextual informationcould include location, role and security status information for eachgroup candidate, among other information. Location information may beprovided by presence services generally known in the art. Changes inlocation may amount a change in situational information that would causegroup membership for a session to be updated. For example, in a disasterresponse scenario, a group may be created to include those in proximityto the disaster—the radius of that area to be adjusted as conditionschange. As a candidate's location changed to one within range of adisaster, the candidate may be included in the group (for example, toreceive emergency communications). As the radius of the area ismodified, the purpose or nature of the collaboration changes and thusthe criteria of membership for the particular collaborationconcomitantly changes.

Context information may also include role information. The role of acandidate is generally associated with the session in which thecandidate is participating. For example, a candidate that is a firerescue employee may have a different role in a collaboration sessionassociated with a disaster response than the same candidate may have fora general communication session.

Context information may further include status information and/orsecurity status information. Status information may be used to fordetermining task assignment, for example if the resource is ‘busy’ in awork-flow, the resource may not be available to be a member of a group,but a change in status may make the resource more desirable. Securitystatus information may control the types of communications that will bevisible to different participants in a group. A candidate may not beeligible for a group if the security status of the candidate isinsufficient. Should a disaster event occur, information can be keptfrom those with inappropriate clearance. However, the present inventionallows candidates of sufficient security status that encounter thesession to optionally be automatically included in the collaboration andcommunications to allow information to quickly be disseminated to thosedetermined to be best suited to utilize the information.

It should be noted that although contextual information such as role,location and security status are provided by way of example, the presentinvention is not limited to the contextual keys disclosed herein.Rather, any context information which may be used to determine whetherit is appropriate to include a candidate in a collaboration group may besubstituted herein. In addition, it is envisioned that the types ofcontext keys deemed to be of interest to cooperative services may beadded or deleted as candidate descriptors, using object orientedprogramming techniques known to those of skill in the art. Thus it canbe appreciated that the present invention is not limited to the use ofany particular context keys.

Static information may include pre-configured knowledge sources, such asemployee data bases, topology data bases, historical team metrics, andthe like. Such records, although generally ‘static’ are subject toupdate, and thus the update of a static record give rise to an ‘event’that may be determined to be of sufficient importance to modify groupmembership by the decision making entity 16.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a flow diagram is provided that detailsexemplary steps that may be performed in a process 20 for dynamicallymanaging group membership according to principles of the presentinvention. At step 22 a collaboration session is initialized and aninitial group of members for the collaboration session is identified(session group member list 25) using mechanisms known in the art. Atstep 24 the collaboration session is initiated, with members exchangingcommunications as needed to advance the workflow of the collaboration.During this time, situational information such as collaboration sessioncharacteristics, environmental conditions, candidate context and staticdata are monitored. At step 26, an event is detected, where the event isa change in one of the collaboration session characteristics,environmental, context or static data that is associated with candidatesof the collaboration session. At step 28, the decision making entityreviews the event, and determines whether the event is one which shouldresult in a modification of group membership for the collaborationsession. It may be that the event is one that is determined (usingheuristics or the like) to not be sufficient to cause group membershipto be changed. If so, the process returns to step 24, and the executionof the collaboration session with the identified group member candidatescontinues.

However, if it is determined that the event warrants modification ofgroup membership for the collaboration session, then at step 28 theprocess returns to step 22, where a new session group member list 25 isidentified. The exact manner in which the new candidate informationresults in an update of the list is one which is dependent upon theparticular workflow of the collaboration session and the detected changein situational information of the collaboration session, and the presentinvention is not limited to any particular type of modification of groupmembership. The decision as to how to manage group using the situationalinformation may be made using heuristics, dynamic policy or inferencealgorithms. In addition, as mentioned above, the decision as to how tomanage groups may be a function performed by the decision mechanism, ormay be performed by a session manager.

Referring now to FIG. 3, an exemplary embodiment of a group membershipmanagement service 30 is shown to include a candidate repository 32,coupled to session member selection logic 33 and event detection anddecision logic 35. As described with regard to FIG. 1, the eventdetection and decision logic 35 may also be coupled to variousrepositories, such as a static data repository (or other knowledge base)36, a contextual information repository 37 and environmental datamonitoring logic 38. In addition event detection logic 35 may alsoreceive indications 40 from collaborative services regarding changes inthe collaboration session characteristics including changes toworkflows, purpose and/or nature of collaborations. The event detectionlogic 35 may determine whether changes in collaboration characteristicsshould result in modification of group membership for a collaborativesession.

In the embodiment of FIG. 3, the candidate repository 32 stores datastructures for each of a plurality of candidates that are available to acollaboration session. The candidates may be known candidates, forexample, included on a distribution list or the like, or the candidatesmay be ‘discovered’ for example as mobile candidates which come intorange of a collaboration session. In one embodiment, the candidaterepository stores context information for each candidate. The contextinformation is periodically updated, for example by the contextinformation data base 37 (which receives input from presence logic 39 aand security controller 39 b), static data base 36 and environmentalmonitoring logic 38. As mentioned above, an example of contextinformation that may be stored for each candidate includes role,security status and location information.

The session member selection logic 33 operates during sessioninitialization in response to commands from the session manager 31 togenerate member tables 34 for each session. In one embodiment, eachmember table stores identifiers of each group member of each session.Messages and collaborations that are exchanged within the group may betagged using the identifiers to assist the user in protecting securityand data integrity of separate collaboration session and sub-sessionworkflows. The member table may also store other information such as therole, security status or location of the member, although this is notrequired.

The session member selection logic 33 also operates to modify sessionmember tables in accordance with a Group Modification Indicationforwarded from the Event Detection and Decision Logic 35. The GroupModification Indication in one embodiment is an indication or commandthat is forwarded from the event detection logic 35 to cause theselection logic to remove or add a candidate from a session, or to mergea session and its group with another session or dissolve a session inresponse to situational inputs.

In one embodiment, the session manager 31 may also generate additionalcollaboration or communication sessions, building upon group informationfrom existing sessions. For example, the session manager may identify asub-group within the group of candidates in a session to receivespecialized communications. Referring briefly to FIG. 4, a diagram isshown of a map 40 of a location requiring emergency collaboration. Asession manager may select an initial group of members for receivingcommunications, with the first group being indicated by the dashed line52 in FIG. 4. The session manager may seek to identify a sub-group,within the initial group, for example that may receive a firstcommunication including safe exit directions. The sub-group is indicatedby the dotted line 52 in FIG. 4. A second sub-group, indicated by solidline 54 may receive different communications regarding a different exitpath to safety. Environmental information provided within the locationassociated with the session 52 may be used to control the selection ofmembers for the particular groups. In an alternate embodiment, acollaborative session between candidates may be initiated by manuallyselecting candidate bounds based on any of the situational information,such as location, roles or status, other group membership, to identifygroups and subgroups. For example, in FIG. 4 the groups may be activelyselected using a pen on a touch pad to circle the different groups.Referring now to FIG. 5, a state diagram is provided to illustrate howchanges in dynamic context of a group candidate may results inmodification to group membership for the candidate.

The oval 50 includes the set of all group candidates for a session. Eachof the candidates has an associated status attribute 52, locationattribute 54 and role attribute 56. The combination of attributes isanalyzed by the session member selection logic to select appropriatecandidates as members for the session. Each attribute may have aplurality of states, with each state of the attribute making thecandidate more or less attractive to the collaboration. FIG. 5illustrates exemplary attribute states, with the more desirableattribute states for the particular session being shaded darker thanless desirable attribute states. It is noted that attribute states mayhave different priorities in different types of cooperative sessions.

In the example of FIG. 5, assume that a collaboration service isassembling an incident response team of Firefighters. Each Fire fighterhas a ‘role’, which may be obtained, for example, from an employeeknowledge base. An incident response team may therefore require a groupof firefighters (represented by set 57), a second number of seniorfirefighters (represented by set 58) and a third number of captains(represented by set 59).

The location is another context attribute that is evaluated whenselecting a group. Candidates that are off site (represented by state61) are less desirable than candidates that are on site (represented bystate 63) for a particular session. Candidates that are on site are lessdesirable than candidates that are in the building (represented by state62).

Status is another context that is evaluated when selecting groupmembers. The status used in this example is a work status, although itis appreciated that the status that is evaluated will vary dependingupon the particular workflow and resources. A firefighter that isoff-duty (represented by state 64) is less desirable than a firefighterthat is on-duty but performing tasks (represented by state 65). A firefighter performing routine tasks is less desirable than one that is onthe current shift (represented by state 66).

The present invention recognizes that a candidates context can change,making the candidate more or less useful to the collaboration, and moreor less vital to the communication. For example, a firefighter thatcompletes a task at step 70 becomes part of the available group ofresources in set 66. A firefighter that travels from off-site into thebuilding is automatically detected according to the present invention,and added into the group, enabling improved response time to theincident. Similarly, as firefighters move away from the building, it isno longer important that they receive communications, and thus thechange in location context triggers a drop of that resource from thegroup, eliminating wasteful use of communication resources.

Moreover, situation needs which contributed to the original groupmembership criteria (desired attributes) may change—this is also an“event” responded to by decision logic 35, and resulting in reassessmentof group membership.

Similarly, events such as an injury or shift rotation (as shown by arrow73) can be quickly detected and collaboration efforts can be quicklyredirected to the appropriate resources. Any changes to static knowledgebases, for example due to promotions and the like, similarly may causegroup membership to be reconsidered.

Accordingly a group membership management method and system have beenshown and described that enhances existing communications andcollaborative sessions by making the sessions responsive toenvironmental and contextual modifications that affect the sessionparticipants. The present invention may advantageously be used tocomplete tasks of a collaborative session as efficiently, effectively orquickly as possible or combinations thereof by rapidly identifyingappropriate resources and filtering the use of resources based oncurrent needs of the collaborative session.

The present invention is also ideally suited for optimizing resourceallocation among a plurality of parallel collaborative sessions becauseit enables fast detection of resource availability redirection ofresource support. For example, FIG. 6 is a non limiting flow diagramillustrating exemplary steps of a process 200 that may be performed bygroup membership selection logic of the present invention. In thesimplistic example of FIG. 6 it is assumed that the goals of thedecision making entity 35 may be changed by incoming events betweenthree basic independent algorithms, minimum cost, minimum time ormaximum lives saved for all collaborative workflows. However, it isenvisioned that more typically each decision making entity may have avariety of goals, many of which may conflict, and it is recognized thatthe conflicting nature of the goals and choices made by the decisionentity will vary greatly depending upon the individual collaborationsand resources. Thus it should be appreciated that the example of FIG. 6is provided merely as an illustration of how a decision making entitymay analyze collaboration session events and candidate situationalinformation to dynamically modify collaboration group membership and howsituational information may modify the decision making criteria usedwithin the decision making entity.

At step 202 a situational event is detected. The situational event mayimpact one or more collaboration sessions; for example a new criteriafor group membership for the collaborative session may be introduced.For example, in an emergency response situation it may be determinedthat a foreign language specialist is required. Or a collaborationsession could be completed, making the resources of the collaborationgroup available to other collaborations. Thus at step 212 the decisionmaking entity may identify each known collaboration session, sub-sessionor task. At step 214 the decision making entity may identify eachresource and current groups, and review current context information forthe resource. At step 220 and 222 determine which of 3 simplisticoptions, minimum time, minimum resources or maximum lives saves is thebest group membership determination algorithm that is best for thecurrent situation. Depending on the results of the operation modedecisions 220 and 222, at step 216, 224 or 228 the decision makingentity may calculate, for all combinations of collaborative sessions andresource pairings, a predicted total time, total man-hours, or totallives saved for the completion of all tasks, and aligning resources withtasks for an optimal solution. At step 218, 226 or 230 the groupmembership for each session would be updated with the results obtainedby the decision making entity.

Various information may be maintained to assist the decision makingentity when determining whether to modify group membership. Theinformation includes task related information, such as a minimum sizegroup for a particular task, average time to task completion, and anaverage ramp up time (resulting from role delegation, teaching time,travel) until a resource can effectively participate in a task. Theinformation also includes resource related information, such as teamhistory and familiarity of potential resources, team efficiency curves,and multi-tasking abilities of the resources. Task related informationand resource related information may be learned by the decision makingentity, or may be provided for use by a network administrator thatmonitors resource behavior. The task related information and resourcerelated information is analyzed in conjunction with the situationalinformation to enable the decision making entity to best determinewhether group membership modifications are desirable in view of thegoals of the collaboration system. It should be understood that it maynot be necessary to revisit the group membership of all collaborativesessions for each detected event. The decision making entity may includelogic for identifying which of the collaborative session may benefitfrom group membership modification, for example group membershipmodification may be considered only for those collaborative sessionshaving resources that are related to the situational information thattriggers the event.

Accordingly a method and apparatus has been shown and described fordynamically managing membership of a collaborative group. Havingdescribed various embodiments of the invention, it will be appreciatedthat many of the above figures are flowchart illustrations of methods,apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to anembodiment of the invention. It will be understood that each block ofthe flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the flowchartillustrations, can be implemented by computer program instructions.These computer program instructions may be loaded onto a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions which execute on the computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus create means for implementing thefunctions specified in the flowchart block or blocks. These computerprogram instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memorythat can direct a computer or other programmable data processingapparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructionsstored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufactureincluding instruction means which implement the function specified inthe flowchart block or blocks. The computer program instructions mayalso be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processingapparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computerimplemented process such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementingthe functions specified in the flowchart block or blocks.

Those skilled in the art should readily appreciate that programsdefining the functions of the present invention can be delivered to acomputer in many forms; including, but not limited to: (a) informationpermanently stored on non-writable storage media (e.g. read only memorydevices within a computer such as ROM or CD-ROM disks readable by acomputer I/O attachment); (b) information alterably stored on writablestorage media (e.g. floppy disks and hard drives); or (c) informationconveyed to a computer through communication media for example usingbaseband signaling or broadband signaling techniques, including carrierwave signaling techniques, such as over computer or telephone networksvia a modem

The above description and figures have included various process stepsand components that are illustrative of operations that are performed bythe present invention. However, although certain components and stepshave been described, it is understood that the descriptions arerepresentative only, other functional delineations or additional stepsand components can be added by one of skill in the art, and thus thepresent invention should not be limited to the specific embodimentsdisclosed. In addition it is understood that the variousrepresentational elements may be implemented in hardware, softwarerunning on a computer, or a combination thereof.

While the invention is described through the above exemplaryembodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the artthat modification to and variation of the illustrated embodiments may bemade without departing from the inventive concepts herein disclosed.Accordingly, the invention should not be viewed as limited except by thescope and spirit of the appended claims.

1. A method for managing membership in a collaboration session includesthe steps of: identifying a plurality of group candidates associatedwith the collaboration session; monitoring situational informationassociated with at least one of a group candidate and the collaborationsession to detect a situational trigger; and selectively modifying amembership of the collaborative session in response to the situationaltrigger.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein the situational informationincludes at least one of collaboration session characteristics,environmental information and contextual information.
 3. The method ofclaim 2 wherein the situation trigger is a change in collaborationsession characteristic that affects group membership criteria.
 4. Themethod of claim 2 wherein the situational trigger is a change inenvironmental information associated with the collaboration session. 5.The method of claim 2 wherein the contextual information includes atleast one of a role of the group candidate, a status of the groupcandidate and a location of the group candidate.
 6. The method of claim5 wherein the situational trigger is a change in group candidate role.7. The method of claim 5 wherein the situational trigger is a change ingroup candidate location.
 8. The method of claim 5 wherein thesituational trigger is a change in status of the group candidate.
 9. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the step of modifying the membership of thecollaboration session adds the group candidate to the session.
 10. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the step of modifying the membership of thecollaboration session removes the group candidate from the session. 11.The method of claim 1 wherein the step of modifying the membership ofthe collaboration session dissolves the session.
 12. The method of claim1 wherein the step of modifying the membership of the collaborationsession identifies membership criteria for a new session, the newsession related to the collaboration session, and wherein the membershipcriteria of the new session includes at least one of the groupcandidates of the collaboration session.
 13. The method of claim 12,wherein the membership criteria of the new session includes a new groupcandidate in the new session, the new group candidate being in additionto group candidates of the collaboration session.
 14. The method ofclaim 13 wherein the membership criteria of the new session includesfewer than all of the group candidates of the collaboration session inthe new session.
 15. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of modifyingmembership automatically modifies membership of the collaborationsession.
 16. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of modifyingmembership forwards a notification of change in membership to a managerof the collaboration session.
 17. The method of claim 1 wherein thegroup candidate is selected from a group including a human, animal andinanimate resource.
 18. The method of claim 1 wherein the step ofmodifying operates in response to one of a policy, inference algorithmand heuristic.
 19. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of selectivelymodifying further operates in response to one of a resource informationand a task information.
 20. An apparatus for controlling group candidatemembership in a collaboration session includes: means for monitoringenvironmental information associated with the collaboration session;means for monitoring contextual information of group candidatesassociated with the collaboration session; means for collaborationsession information; event detection logic, for detecting changes to atleast one of the environmental, contextual information and collaborationsession information; and membership modification logic for selectivelymodifying membership of group candidates associated with thecollaboration session in response to the event detection logic.
 21. Theapparatus of claim 20, wherein the membership modification logicselectively adds group candidates to the collaboration session.
 21. Theapparatus of claim 20 wherein the membership modification logicselectively deletes group candidates from the collaboration session. 22.The apparatus of claim 20 wherein the membership modification logicselectively dissolves the collaboration session.
 23. The apparatus ofclaim 20 wherein the contextual information includes at least one of arole of the group candidate, a status of the group candidate and alocation of the group candidate.
 24. The method of claim 23 wherein theevent detection logic detects a change in group candidate role.
 25. Themethod of claim 23 wherein the event detection logic detects a change ingroup candidate location.
 26. The method of claim 23 wherein the eventdetection logic detects a change in status of the group candidate.
 27. Amethod for controlling group membership in each of a plurality ofcollaboration sessions includes the steps of: detecting a triggeringevent, the triggering event being associated with at least one of: oneof the plurality of collaboration sessions and a plurality of groupcandidates associated with any of the plurality of collaborationsessions; and selectively modifying group membership of the plurality ofcollaboration sessions in response to the triggering event.
 28. Themethod of claim 27 wherein the step of detecting a triggering eventincludes the step of detecting a change in at least one of environmentalinformation, contextual information associated with any of the pluralityof group candidates and group membership criteria of any of thecollaboration sessions.
 29. The method of claim 27 wherein the step ofselectively modifying further operates in response to at least one oftask information and resource information, the task information beingassociated with the plurality of collaboration sessions and the resourceinformation being associated with the plurality of group candidates. 30.The method of claim 29 wherein the task information and resourceinformation comprises historical information.
 31. The method of claim 29wherein the step of selectively modifying group membership operates tomodify a first group membership of a first collaboration service byperforming at least one of adding the group candidate to the first groupmembership, deleting the group candidate from the first groupmembership, deleting the first group membership, merging the first groupmembership with a second group membership and generating a sub-groupwithin the first group membership.